


Lay Down Your Slow (come settle down)

by incipimus



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: AU, Andreil, Drugs, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, eventually, raven!neil au, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-09-25 13:17:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9822266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incipimus/pseuds/incipimus
Summary: “Love or exy?” the reporter asks and she’s leaning way too eagerly forward, and there’s a sharpness in her eyes that Andrew knows comes from the misplaced belief that she is standing on the precipice of a big scoop.Nathaniel laughs and cards his fingers through his hair carelessly. “Love is exy.”(And his arm is a too-careful 1.5 inches away from Andrew’s and there is nothing Andrew wants more, in this moment, than to close that distance and watch Riko’s web get torn into shreds.)AU where Nathaniel’s mother never ran away and Andrew is recruited to the Ravens, but there is one constant that holds true for all universes and it is that Andrew finds Neil and falls way too hard. Slowburn.[title from technicolor beat by oh wonder]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi dudes back with this #brand new fic instead of spending my time writing my essays amirite

Andrew signs his soul away without a second thought, black pen scrawling too smooth over Tetsuji Moriyama’s contract. Riko stands at the coach’s left side and Kevin Day leans against the wall to Andrew’s left, frown lines embedded too-deep in his face. 

Andrew is acutely aware that all three have positioned themselves between him and the door but he has his knives and his mind and he only stares them down. 

(He can tell himself all he wants that he is only doing this to get off the court-ordered drugs but he has never been in the business of lying: _ I will spare Aaron _ , Riko had said, and Andrew had snarled but he’d climbed into the backseat of his car.)

Coach (never  _ Master _ , he is not  _ tame _ like Kevin) introduces him to his cane almost before Andrew has set his pen down and Riko tears his knives away before he can even do much damage and Kevin moves to stand in front of the door.

And Andrew relaxes into the pain wholly because this is the last thing he knows how to feel. 

* * *

 

JeanandNathaniel take him to his room, after. They gravitate towards each other,  _ like planets _ , Andrew observes through his two swollen eyes. His roommate is an upperclassman and though Andrew’s heartrate speeds up almost immediately he vowed years ago that Drake would be the last. 

He bares his teeth at the teen and ignores JeanandNathaniel when they tell him to play nice. 

(He does wonder if they have ever learned to be two separate people but he does not see them apart, ever, until Kevin tears away from his chain and Riko upends the entire Nest in his rage.)

Riko makes him break most of his promises that first week anyway and in the hazy parts between practice-pain-practice-pain he thinks he sees God. 

* * *

 

“Nice tat,” Riko says at practice when Andrew arrives almost-late. His cheekbone still stings and he does not talk back because for the first time in however long he has been here, he is tired. They have their first game that night. 

The Ravens sweep Eagles 34-1. Exy is everything Andrew remembers and more. 

(Riko took him aside right before, said _ shut down that goal or I will shove these pills down your throat and break your legs _ , and then smiled and patted him on the head. 

Andrew looked him in the eye as he let the Eagle’s third attempt to score go through, and the rage he feels radiating off of him gets him as high as the pills would have.)

Riko takes great pleasure in tying him down that night and enlisting JeanandNathaniel’s help and Andrew spends most of that time spitting in all of their faces even as his legs are torn to shreds. He is not Kevin and he never will be Kevin and is best that Riko learns this now, it is best that Riko lengthens his chain and allow Andrew to carve out his own kingdom.

If there is one thing Andrew has learned it is that he is harder than Riko’s like will ever be and that they will always break against him. If there is one thing Andrew has learned it is that when unstoppable force meets immovable object, the object will divert the force in another direction. 

He only gets this eloquent when he’s high as balls and that is when he realizes that Riko really did feed him those awful pills and then he just laughs. 


	2. Chapter 2

JeanandNathaniel corner Andrew after practice, sometime during his fourth month at the nest (he lost track somewhere around the third month. Or—more that he couldn’t care less about the time _outside_ the Nest as long as he can control some of the time _inside_ the Nest). 

“Have you been dealing shit?” Jean hisses, blunt, no hesitation. 

Andrew watches Nathaniel where he lurks at Jean’s shoulder like a shadow. The locker room slowly empties out.

“ _Andrew_ ,” Jean snaps, exasperated. 

“You’re a fucking pet,” he says, just to be difficult, and he almost misses Nathaniel’s fleeting smile.

“And you sell the athletes heroin,” Nathaniel points out blankly. His eyes are too piercing. Andrew thinks he can see something of himself, something jagged and broken and angry. Something dangerous (he definitely has knives hidden in his shoes and folded in his pockets and— ). Number three has a solid mask but like recognizes like, as the poets say. (Not that Andrew has had the time to read anything. Not that Andrew has even wanted to read, he has enough to remember as it is.)

“Among other things.” The silence is too-deafening and Andrew finds himself eyeing the distance between his hand and Nathaniel’s throat. 

“I won’t tell on you if you don’t tell on me,” Andrew says, finally, and Nathaniel’s answering grin is savage. 

* * *

 

“Shut. Down. The. Goal.” Riko hisses, punctuating each word with handfuls of pain. Andrew spits in his face.

He sees Nathaniel leaning against the doorway, fascination in the boy’s eyes.

* * *

 

His partner stands uselessly next to the showers with a towel, looking uncomfortably at his own feet. 

“Stitches,” Andrew barks from where he’s lying in a very rapidly growing pool of his own blood, and the man tosses him a packet of floss. 

The door bangs open somewhere between Andrew threading the floss and Andrew carefully stabbing himself in the leg, and a voice barks, “ _Out_.” 

Andrew allows himself to sink into the tiles as Nathaniel crouches next to him, all lithe sinew and bright red hair. Jean sits himself down on the bench and toys lazily with his phone. Just this once, Andrew promises himself, just this once, some kindness.

Andrew finds himself counting the scars that wrap up and down Nathaniel’s arms, that snake up his sleeves and, Andrew imagines, hugs his torso and his legs.

Jean slowly but surely beats every single game on his phone and Nathaniel slowly but surely works to keep his skin together and Andrew slowly but surely reaches the high eighties. 

(It is the closest he has ever been to peace.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triggers: drug mention and general bad Nest vibes   
> at least andrew and neil speak to each other?  
> next chapter: summary scene explained ;)

**Author's Note:**

> Triggers: uhh,, just, general mentions of regular Raven bad times. Hints @ andrew’s past yikes.  
> Eagles are from Coppin State University in Baltimore, Maryland; i know sports guys i spent 5 minutes on wikipedia.  
> Next chapter: nathaniel and andrew finally talk alone?


End file.
